Monday, November 18, 2013

One Monday morning at a
summer job, when I was an age that tempts many older people to refer to you as “a
baby,” a co-worker I’d never seen before told me she owned the same top I was
wearing and would be walking the halls in it herself on Thursday. I normally go
out of my way to prevent this “We’re Twins!” extravaganza from happening, so it
wasn’t great news. But I grew more preoccupied with the idea of planning a
week’s worth of outfits in advance. If I did that, I figured, I wouldn’t be
late for work or for play.

I signed off on every
piece of clothing and jewelry I wore to work last week the night before. It didn’t
get me out the door any quicker. Unless I have a meeting, or otherwise
suspect that any tardiness could hold another person or system up,
there are mornings when I’m not quite as punctual as I technically could be. Sometimes
it’s due to reasons outside of my control: my neighbors and I were trapped inside
of our building’s foyer after the inner door handle
developed a dastardly mind of its own; a manhunt for an escaped
prisoner delayed my train; two tied-up pit bulls excitedly encouraged me to
come over for a meet-and-greet and it would have been inhumane not to pay my
respects. Other days, the reasons aren’t as riveting.

(Incidentally, the older crowd
still refers to me as “just a baby,” and to my face. It’s dismissive.)

Baby occasionally rides a morning
train she’s nicknamed her really-pushing-the-envelope late train. Its uncrowded
last car contains an older passenger who is currently her favorite person in
the Tri-State Area (no need to get to know him, that could ruin everything). She
gets off before he does and they exchange big, show-me-your-teeth smiles on her
way out, wishing each other good days. The ritual uplifts her.

After I’ve crossed paths
with certain souls more than twice, I find it impossible not to speculate about
the lives they strongly lead or sadly follow. Where are they coming from? Where
are they headed? Why do they look so distraught when they think no one is
watching? How empowering might it feel to successfully catch the same train
(same car, same seat) every day - or is the lack of variety adding to the distress?

Monday, November 11, 2013

In my first string of New York
minutes, I cohabited with locals who relentlessly ordered their meals in. They
would wake up or come home and get somewhat settled before picking up the phone
to place an order for delivery, sometimes from eateries stationed down the
street. What a bunch of lazy asses, I
decided, you couldn’t pay me to live like
that. We children of Started-from-the-Bottom-Now-We-Here
immigrants value home-cooked meals over making bicyclists hazardously weave through
buses and cars to fetch our hot food.

Fast forward to about ten
years later. In the past week, I’ve called out for delivery twice, with the updated
standpoint of: Bring me my dinner, and be
quick about it. In fact, bring enough to last a couple of days so I have
leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch, as I’m in no frame of mind to cook or shop for
what’s missing in my kitchen. It's alarming how often someone who’s out foraging for food so
much can have nothing left to nosh on. That’s the downside
of high metabolisms and the upside of living in communities where it’s
commonplace to drive to the grocery store and stock up with impunity, instead
of having to make multiple on-foot trips, settling for as much as you can carry
for five blocks. The idea of ordering groceries online and having the cargo dispatched
to my doorstep hasn’t sounded nuts to me in months. Neither has the idea of
sending my laundry out. I’m at the edge of my bed in suspense about what will seem
normal next.

The act of being a New
Yorker, one who’s really a part of it all, can periodically sap the energy out
of you, to the extent nowhere else I’ve lived has. It’s almost like being an
older version of what you were in college (the last time I had meals delivered
with any regularity), when you and the people tightly packed around you were up
at all hours, fighting to balance the serious with the social, maturation with
exploration, without burning out too soon, and the thrill of finding a free
Coke at the bottom of your delivery bag can be all it takes to keep the mojo humming
for another night.

Monday, November 4, 2013

It’s fair to say I’ve
spent a good deal of time thinking about how I’d answer: “If a genie granted
you three wishes, what would you ask for?” (I used to watch and read a lot of Aladdin- and Arabian Nights-related material.) Lower alcohol tolerance and at
least one mob connection have long served as my first two wishes. I’ve gone
back and forth with #3, but now I’ve got it: I’ll take two same-sized feet.

My feet aren’t even a
simple, solid half an inch apart. They’re probably more like two-fifths or
three-sevenths of an inch apart, or different widths, or whatever it means when
one shoe is too tight while the other is too big, or when both shoes are too
tight or too big but in completely different places. It’s why I rarely walk
long distances in anything other than sneakers or Nike flip-flops (which are sneakers
with a thong, have excellent traction, and won’t get nasty or squeaky in the
rain) – they don’t hurt or require any painful “breaking in” trials that hardly end well. Like many
women, I own more than a dozen pairs of
shoes. All because when I buy a new pair it’s hit or miss, even if they feel OK
in the store. Since it’s mostly a miss, at any given time I only have one pair
of non-athletic shoes I can briskly walk more than 20 minutes in without
blistering or cutting up my feet. At the office, I have a drawer full of nice shoes.
They’re for wearing around the office. At home, I have a closet floor lined
with shoes. A third of them are for in-home use or special occasions, after
commuting to the special occasion in sneakers or flip-flops.

I’ve seen a cobbler. I’ve ponied
up for drugstore products designed to close gaps or ease chafing. Nothing helps
for long. Shoes hate me, I hate shoes; the barer the feet, the closer to the
glow of my nail polish I’ll be.